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Add to Preferred SourcesMyanmar’s health system continues to improve, but significant health inequities remain. People living in conflict-affected areas are likely to experience poorer health outcomes, while those living in remote or hard-to-reach places are also more likely to suffer.
Four donors – the United Kingdom, Sweden, United States, and Switzerland – are committed to tackling these complex challenges, through continued pooled funding for Myanmar’s health sector. This pooled funding mechanism, the Access to Health Fund, will operate from January 2019 to the end of 2023. Access to Health is aligned with national health goals and priorities, supporting the achievement of Universal Health Coverage by 2030.
Access to Health Fund Board Chair Rea Bonzi said: “Despite making great leaps forward in the past few years, the health system in Myanmar faces great challenges in reaching its most vulnerable populations.”
“From those who live in remote or conflict-affected areas to those who face enormous stigma in reaching services – Access to Health Fund aims to support the government and ethnic health organizations to reach everyone,” he added.
Through support to ethnic health organizations in close coordination with the Ministry of Health and Sports, the Fund will help bring services where they are most needed. Work will concentrate attention on conflict-affected areas, which government health providers may find difficult to reach and where available health services may be limited or of poor quality.
Access to Health will also dedicate funding and resources to continued work in strengthening the health system, and sustaining and building on the gains achieved by the Fund’s predecessor, the 3MDG Fund.
Teresa McGhie, USAID Mission Director, highlighted the benefits of bringing key donors together in a single fund.
“This multi-donor mechanism will increase aid effectiveness, achieve scale, pool risks, and provide coordinated support to country priorities,” she said.
The Access to Health Fund will support the Myanmar response to communicable diseases (Malaria, HIV and Tuberculosis) and mother and child health, and will also dedicate resources to supporting Myanmar’s health system through investments in human capacity, infrastructure and management systems.
Original source: UNOPS
Published on 3 December 2018